Nuclear hearing in Joliet

Ted Gregory and Robert Manor, Tribune staff reportersCHICAGO TRIBUNE

A controversial federal proposal for nuclear energy expansion will stop in Joliet Thursday night, when the U.S. Department of Energy holds a public hearing on the environmental impact of placing nuclear recycling facilities in the area.

It is the latest turn in an initiative announced by President Bush in January 2006 that seeks to broaden nuclear power use for civilian reactors.

Argonne National Laboratory, near Lemont, and a General Electric Co. site near Morris are being considered for the program. Argonne would house a research and development facility and the G.E. site would house a plant that would reprocess radioactive waste into useable fuel.

Supporters of Bush's initiative, called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, say the program would offset rising oil and natural gas prices while lowering emissions.

Detractors say the plants soon would be dealing with storing and disposing radioactive waste while the program would make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons materials.

The Energy Department is calling Thursday's hearing a "public scoping meeting," in which officials gather residents' environmental concerns about placing a GNEP facility in the area.

When Bush announced the creation of GNEP, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman hailed it as a way to "extract more energy from nuclear fuel, reduce the amount of waste that requires permanent disposal and greatly reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation. "If we can make GNEP a reality," Bodman said at the time, "we can make the world a better, cleaner and safer place to live."

The Union of Concerned Scientists, however, contends that "reprocessing would make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons materials and for nations to develop nuclear weapons programs."

Government dismisses risks

But Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for nuclear energy at the department, called the terrorist threat "a red herring that simply is not true."

The GNEP would establish a tightly monitored, international network of nuclear nations. Spurgeon noted that countries participating in the partnership, including China, France, Britain, Japan and Russia, already recycle spent nuclear fuel.

GNEP would modify the production of waste to render that waste less potent than pure plutonium, making it unusable "in an immediate sense" for weapons production, Spurgeon said.

Nuclear critics also warn that if Morris or any other community accepts a nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant, it likely would be the nation's sole disposal site for radioactive waste for years to come.

Edwin Lyman, senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that although reprocessing spent nuclear fuel somewhat reduces its volume, a substantial amount of waste remains and will remain radioactive for decades.

"Whatever community that accepts this facility is virtually guaranteeing they will become a long-term waste dump," Lyman said.

Spurgeon rejected that contention. He noted that recycling reduces the amount of waste to dispose of, and reprocessing shortens the hazardous life span of harmful radioactive materials.

Spent nuclear fuel currently is stored in large pools of water or in massive concrete casks onsite at the nation's 103 nuclear plants. That radioactive waste would be the source of the fuel used by the three proposed reprocessing plants.

Federal officials acknowledge GNEP is a significant change in federal energy policy, which for decades has balked at the expansion of nuclear power.

A total of 13 sites in eight states applied to be considered for the reprocessing facilities. The Energy Department will choose the sites on which it will build a research and development facility, a recycling center and an advanced reactor that would process the recycled fuel to make electricity.

Officials weighing options

Federal officials plan to choose the research and development site by the summer of 2008 and start construction in 2011, said department spokesman Brian Quirke.

The department will decide the placement of the recycling center and advanced reactor by the summer of 2009, Quirke said.

Federal officials are considering building the recycling center and advanced reactor on the G.E. site, where a nuclear reprocessing center was built years ago but never operated. The site includes a functioning nuclear-waste storage pool.

Argonne is being considered for the research and development center, which would examine spent nuclear-fuel reprocessing and other advanced nuclear fuel cycles.

Thursday's hearing will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. in the Barber and Oberwortmann Horticultural Center 227 N. Gougar Rd., Joliet.

It will begin with the Energy Department's overview of the program, followed by public comment.

Department officials will not respond to arguments or questions, but merely accept information, Quirke said.